A Case with a View Towards an Integration of Visual and Case-Based Reasoning in Design

Abstract

Despite the long-term effort to establish the theoretical foundations for Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) in design, it appears that additional theoretical efforts are needed in order to achieve the promise of this affinity. In this paper we argue that visual reasoning, is a fundamental attribute of architectural design, and therefore combining it with CBR may provide significant results both for the field of design thinking as well as for the field of CAAD. This paper focuses on reformulating theoretical foundations for CBR in design by incorporating insights from studies in fields like visual imagery and creativity, where visual reasoning is recognized to play a key role. Within classical CBR research, however, visual reasoning has not received much attention until now. Instead, researchers have concentrated on traditional issues and topics in CBR such as indexing, retrieval and adaptation. The second part of the paper therefore switches attention to how these traditional issues may benefit from integrating Case-Based with visual reasoning.